Lawyers Seek $2.5 Million for Boy Molested at Group Home

Even as defense attorneys labeled some of the evidence “garbage,” lawyers for a 13-year-old who was molested by a counselor at his foster shelter two years ago asked a jury Monday to award the boy $2.5 million.

The boy is one of nine teenagers who say they were raped or molested while living in San Bernardino County group homes--most of them by counselors who are there to protect and help them.

All of the homes are run by Chico-based Victor Treatment Centers, one of the largest operators in California’s child welfare system. And all are so-called Level 14 facilities, reserved for the most emotionally troubled children and considered a last resort before they are placed in mental hospitals.

Five of the teenagers have brought three lawsuits against their alleged attackers and Victor Treatment Centers. The 13-year-old boy’s case, which went to a jury Monday evening, is the first to come to trial, and its resolution will be considered an indicator of the other cases’ chances.

Most immediately, the jury must decide whether to grant the boy the $2.5 million in compensatory damages--plus punitive damages down the road--for the attacks, which took place in late 1999.

“This, so to speak, is the moment of truth,” Santa Ana attorney Jack H. Anthony, who has brought the three lawsuits, told the jury Monday morning in San Bernardino Superior Court. “These are not throwaway kids. They are our kids.”

The boy, then 11, was living at a home known as Bronson House in 1999 when he was raped by a counselor on at least three occasions. The counselor, Steven Ayala, pleaded guilty to sodomy and received a six-year prison term.

The incidents contributed to criticism that state officials have not done enough to respond to the teenagers’ charges.

Earlier this month, state officials moved to shut down a separate group home, Chestnut House, where three teenage girls said they were raped by counselors. But they declined to take action at the other homes where attacks were reported--including Bronson House, where officials said they did not have enough evidence of wrongdoing.

Anthony has argued during the monthlong trial of his client’s case that the operators of the licensed group home, not just Ayala himself, must be held accountable for the attacks.

“Steve Ayala was not the license holder,” Anthony told the jury Monday. “It was Victor Treatment Centers who was the license holder.”

As San Bernardino Superior Court Judge Bob N. Krug and the jury listened, Anthony said there were a series of overt clues in the months before Ayala’s arrest that he was developing an improper relationship with the boy.

The two were spotted together on a couch while the boy stroked Ayala’s cheek, Anthony said. Later, the boy complained of rectal bleeding, but he was not taken to a doctor until he went to his parents’ home for Thanksgiving.

“People saw it and did nothing about it,” Anthony said. “Yes, Steven Ayala did a horrible thing. Yes, he was a twisted person. But he could have been stopped.”

The attorney read the jury a transcript of an interview conducted by a psychologist, in which the boy said has had a series of graphic, violent dreams about Ayala since the attacks.

“It keeps on going until I wake up,” the boy said in the interview.

Timothy J. Stafford, the Santa Ana attorney who represents Victor Treatment Centers, countered with a defiant closing argument that called Anthony’s financial demands outrageous.

Stafford strode to a large piece of paper pinned to a wall and wrote “12 x 45=540,” the number of jurors multiplied by their average age and yielding their years of “life experience.” He said those were the important numbers in the case--and that common sense should tell the jury to reject Anthony’s request.

Stafford accused the boy’s attorneys of offering presenting misleading evidence. One witness implied that Ayala washed the boy’s clothes and sheets to remove blood. But the internal document used to substantiate that accusation also indicated that Ayala washed the clothes of all of the home’s occupants.

The nonprofit group received $5.5 million in public funds last year to run group homes in San Bernardino and Riverside counties.